Amazon said on Thursday that it had whittled the list of possible homes for its second headquarters down to 20, including centers of technology like Boston as well as some surprise locations like Columbus, Ohio.

The company, based in Seattle, selected the finalists out of a pile of more than 238 applications submitted by local officials in Mexico, Canada and the United States — all of them eager to attract the 50,000 high-paying jobs the company says it could bring. When the unusual public contest was announced in September, it set off a public charm offensive by the applicants, with many local officials trying to entice Amazon with tax breaks and other benefits.

The ones I'm surprised that are on the list are Montgomery County Md, Indianapolis, and Columbus.
I'm most surprised that Detroit *didn't* make the list. Obviously I have no idea what was in their bid, but this would have been a great opportunity to boost a city that could really use it.
Anyway, Go Philly!

I really don't think Amazon would be going through all this trouble if they weren't actually intending to go ahead with this.

And it should be noted, Seattle submitted a bid (as did Tacoma) but they aren't on the list. So anyone who thought this was just a bid by Amazon to extract more incentives from the State of Washington is looking rather silly right now.

I was thinking the exact same thing, Steely! To me, all three of these are pretty much the same place!

Other than that glaring issue (and the notable lack of Detroit being included), most of the cities remaining are pretty much the ones I thought would be there. Perhaps Columbus and Indianapolis are a bit of a surprise, but that's just my $.02.

Aaron (Glowrock)

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"The three most beautiful cities in the world are Paris, St. Petersburg & Pittsburgh. If Pittsburgh were situated somewhere in the heart of Europe tourists would eagerly journey hundreds of miles out of their way to visit it." The New Yorker Jan. 9, 1989